The other Culiacanazo

Away from the political-partisan brawls, the decision makers in the states of the so-called Golden Triangle were aware of the movements of the federal forces. Top-level informants from the federal government spoke —in the middle of last December— of a final decision: the imminent extradition of one of the six “priority objectives” indicated by the US authorities.

The escape of 30 highly dangerous inmates from the Cereso in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua —among them Ernesto Piñón, el Neto— must have been an indubitable sign of the state of alert, in the entities of the north of the country. The recent relocation of prisons from the Cieneguillas prison, Zacatecas, seeks to prevent another offensive by criminal gangs.

The relief in the Ninth Military Zone —where Brigadier General Alfredo Salgado Vargas took command, after the departure of General Héctor Ávila Alcocer— has been interpreted as another indication of imminent action in Sinaloa.

The “strategic operation” on the outskirts of Culiacán to arrest Ovidio Guzmán, four days after the arrival of the presidents of the United States and Canada in Mexico, involved members of the Ministry of National Defense and the National Guard. Governor Rubén Rocha Moya was not informed of the operation until it was in progress and only the support of the state police was required as an adjunct in the safeguarding of strategic facilities and the protection of the civilian population.

The capture of the leader of Los Menores, defined the general secretary Luis Crescencio Sandoval, is “a forceful blow to the leadership of the Pacific Cartel” but it left a violent escalation, with fifty blockades in different roads and armed aggressions in the airport and military airbase. Culiacán, Mazatlán and Los Mochis yesterday were ghost cities, cut off from the rest of the country by air and land. There were bullets. Are the hugs over?

Without specifying the number of casualties, the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, called on the population of those cities to avoid the dissemination of information about the events. “These are moments to be united, society and government… we are not here to win a war. We come to build peace, ”she insisted.

Fake news? There were crude manipulations —such as the fighters that supposedly escorted the plane that transported the son of Chapo Guzmán Loera to Mexico City— but the images of the Barret .50 that tried to disable a helicopter, or of the barricades on the roads at different points of Nayarit and Sinaloa, circulated profusely on social networks.

The tension moved to the capital of the Republic, where in the afternoon notices were received about “imminent retaliatory actions” that forced Pemex and the Federal Electricity Commission to activate the security protocols.

Side effects

PROPOSAL. The information maelstrom about the events in Culiacán eclipsed the confirmation of the candidacy of Omar Mejía Castelazo to the Board of Governors of Banco de México. In the event that his nomination was endorsed by the Senate of the Republic, he would be the second official from the Federation Treasury to reach the autonomous body in this six-year term. His former boss, Galia Borja Gómez, is the precedent. And together with the current governor, Victoria Rodríguez Ceja —who was Undersecretary of Finance—, they would complete the third of officials of the Fourth Transformation that has arrived in Banxico.

FORECASTS. On three occasions, the INAI plenary session has had to resort to extraordinary measures to guarantee compliance with its legal obligations in the face of legislative omissions in the appointment of commissioners. The law establishes that the plenary sessions will be valid with the attendance of at least five commissioners, including the president commissioner. And for this reason, the call of the members of the autonomous body to the Senate of the Republic to appoint the two missing commissioners, given the proximity of the departure of Francisco Javier Acuña Llamas. “Time is pressing”, defined the president, Blanca Lilia Ibarra.